Deadly DUEL of Court Dwarf Jeffrey Hudson

 The thing about shooting "modern guns" is that when you pull the trigger - it goes BANG - and all that's left to do is fire again & again & again ... That can get expensive and a bit boring after a few hundreds of shots eh - whereas if you start learning the art of Muzzle Loading and using antique propellant Black Powder .. well there's so much more to it to get used to - that if you are young and HASTY and can't keep it up and going for more than 30 seconds you are most unlikely to succeed in your enterprise ..

Now here's another enlightenment for youse .. Did you know that the venerable WHEEL LOCK  system for black powder ignition is not a 'flintlock' because it DOES NOT USE FLINTS ?

Flintlocks work by using a very hard piece of shaped FLINT to scrape iron shards from a "steel" surface as white hot sparks, to set off the gun powder .. BUT a Wheel-Lock uses a hardened toothed wheel to scrape and chip off glowing particles of IRON PYRITES that light the gun powder .. if you're lucky - which might be why pyrites is mostly called Fools Gold.

FOOLS GOLD - Iron Pyrites

Now, if you're not already too bored you should enjoy Ethan's video showing you him firing the wheel-lock he had such fun making ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNS8Eoxmuqg

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Jeffrey Hudson 1619-1682 was a very small man born to a respected father who was a butcher & BULL BAITER. 

He was a tiny wee lad of some 46 centimeters 18 inches tall and he was passed to royalty to be an amusing gift as "a rarity of nature" a mixed blessing that exposed him to the upper classes as a freak, but over time he became an intelligent and capable wee man who got really fucked off by folk pinching and poking him and taking the piss.

In 1644 - the brother of an English Baron, a William Crofts challenging him as unable to fight a turkey-cock - turned up for a duel equiped with a water squirter that he amused himself by aiming and emptying at the small man mounted on his pony - who urged his steed forward - to shoot Crofts squarely in the forehead with his pistol killing him stone dead.

Moral of the story .. Don't take the piss and don't underestimate anyone.

“The giving cavalier [Croft] took no firearms, but merely a huge squirt, with which he meant at once to extinguish his small adversary and the power of his weapon. The vengeful dwarf, however, managed his good steed with sufficient address to avoid the shower aimed at himself and his loaded pistols, and, withal, to shoot his laughing adversary dead.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/amazing-story-18-inch-duelling-28517793

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Hudson

Hudson had a VERY interesting life - Well worth reading about.

Marty K.